This invention relates generally to the field of mail processing, and in particular to the processing of mail relating to financial institutions. More specifically, the invention relates to devices for reading information from and writing information to cards and properly matching cards with card carriers.
Credit cards play an important role in today's economy. To receive a credit card, a person typically fills out an application which is processed by a bank that will issue the card. If the application is approved, the card needs to be produced and sent to the requestor. Banks often contract another company to produce and issue cards on their behalf. For example, one such company is First Data Resources (FDR).
To issue a card, the bank sends the information to FDR, typically in electronic form. Using this information a card is embossed and initialized with the appropriate information. The card is then attached to a paper carrier and then placed into an envelope for mailing. Existing equipment for performing such steps are commercially available from Bowe, Augsberg, Germany. Optionally, a second sheet and one or more inserts may also be added prior to placement into the envelope.
Unfortunately, such equipment can be expensive, typically on the order of about $1 million. Further, such machines do not provide sufficient error checking in some cases. Further still, such machines are not designed to work with newer cards (e.g., smart cards). As such, this invention relates to other machines and techniques that may be used to process such media in a more cost effective and efficient manner and operate on new card types.